2012 No. 2 £3.50 (free to members) Jon Snow gives the 2012 Garden Lecture on Iran Rio+20 Abidjan Egypt EVENTS CONTENTS 22nd – 26th September Liberal Democrats Autumn Pages 3-9 Time to Rethink Iran, The Garden Lecture, Conference, Brighton. by Jon Snow th st 17 -21 October LI Congress, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire Page 9 LIBG at Brighton 20th October 127thLiberal Party Assembly, Friends Page 9 International Abstracts Meeting House, 8b Summerfield Road (off Bath Road), Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton Pages 10-12 From Rio to the post 2015 Development Agenda, by Felix Dodds Late October The Yanks Night – a discussion of the coming US elections. Page 12 LI Congress, Abidjan, by Julie Smith NLC tbc. Page 12 Membership matters 6thNovember US Presidential Election. Page 13-14 Egypt’s Destructive Freedom of Expression, by Mohammed Nossier 15thNovember Police Commissioner Elections. Page 14 New Officers Late November/December Forum on Burma with Liberal Youth. NLC tbc. Pages 14-15 Reviews For bookings & other information please contact the Page 15-16 Free Pussy Riot [Russia] Chair below. ----------------------------------------------- Page 16 Miners’ Strike Massacre [South Africa] NLC= National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London SW1A 2HE Underground: Embankment Page 16 Blasphemy Law in Tunisia? Page 16 DPP Slams New Agreement With China [Taiwan] Page 16 Brighton, by Horace Smith [first verse] Internet edition only - Pages 17-18 Gardeners’ Question Time - the Q&A Session of Jon Snow’s Garden Lecture Liberal International (British Group) Chair: Wendy Kyrle-Pope, 1 Brook Gardens, Barnes, Pages 18-20 Liberal Democrats Autumn Conference – London SW13 0LY the International bits… email [email protected] InterLiB is published by the Liberal International (British Group). Views expressed therein are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of LI(BG), LI or any of its constituent parties. Comments and articles can be sent to Lockhart & Hastings, Creative Media Centre, 17 & 45 Robertson Street, Hastings TN34 1HL,. email - [email protected] Time to Rethink Iran? Lord Garden Memorial Lecture Jon Snow Well, it's a very daunting honour to be allowed to But nevertheless we have these relatively abortive and speak in memory of Tim and his beloved Chatham hopeless nuclear talks, which I think are more of a House. And to do it actually here, which is not a thing charade for the West than they are for Iran. I don't I often do. I'm not an expert. I am a hack, there's no think... The West is so desperate now to try and avoid question about that. But he was an inexhaustible some awful shemozzle, because heaven only knows expert. And the strange thing was, once he became a that if somebody did bomb Iran, the consequences are Liberal Democrat Peer, we barely noticed because we absolutely unfathomable. still had him on as an expert. He just happened to be a Liberal Democrat as well. But it's my argument today that we could not have constructed a worse relationship with another country But he was an analyst who could really explain what than we've managed with Iran. It has been a huge he had analysed. A lot of people can analyse stuff but endeavour to get ourselves into the condition that not actually then talk about it very coherently. So he we're now in, in which a country that is a formidable had great gifts and we miss him a great deal. He was regional power is now so alienated from everybody wonderfully friendly and decent and understanding. about. And it's very easy to say that they're all He would have proved at the tender age that he would bonkers, that the Supreme Leader is a difficult man, have been now, only 67, a more than useful force in that the leadership is divided, that they're corrupt and our virgin peacetime engagement with coalition that they're messianic and the rest of it. politics. But I'm afraid to say, at the end of the day, it is a I am more than mindful that I have chosen a subject to country that has not invaded another country in 300 speak about which many people in this room are far years. It's a country which interestingly has not yet more expert in talking about than I am. But I speak bombed London or indeed New York or Washington today not as an academic, and certainly not as or the Pentagon, or more or less anywhere else. And someone of Tim's analytical calibre, but as one who there are plenty of countries that we could point to has spent a lot of time in Iran down the years, some of with whom we have most fraternal relationships which it with Tom Fenton – who is here in the front row – have had a hand in bombing places of interest to from CBS. ourselves. And I've met and talked with elements of its We have troops in the field in, I estimate two countries leadership, interviewed successive presidents from covertly and two overtly, in which Wahhabi Banisadr to Ahmadinejad, who I've actually now met fundamentalists are very actively in play, in which nearly half a dozen times. I've met many others, from Saudi money for example has played an active part. the formidable global Iranian Diaspora, from which And which you could even say Saudi inspiration has Britain herself benefits so considerably. played a formidable part in bringing them about. But the timing is not mine. The timing is Sue's, And yet, we are totally allied with the Saudi faction of because when she asked me what I wanted to talk life, and we are virtually at war with Iran. And I want about three or four months ago, maybe more, maybe to argue today that this is a ridiculous condition to six months ago, I said I'd like to talk about Iran. And have got ourselves into and that in many ways, we've at that point, things were pretty dead. Well they allowed ourselves to do it without really thinking weren't, they were extremely lively. People were seriously about it. talking about bombing Iran and of course they're still talking about bombing Iran today. It's a fashionable I want to take you just very quickly through history, thing to do, to talk about bombing Iran. Actually I because I think history, recent history in Iran tells you think if anyone wants to bomb Iran, they should bomb a great deal about why we're in the mess we're in now. it with laptops, because that's actually what people 1978-79, I was sent to Iran, only because somebody really yearn for; connectivity. came into the newsroom and said, ‘Is there anybody bottom of the Caspian Sea, at the bottom, you would who has ever been to Iran?’ And I put my hand up, drive from Tabriz all the way towards Afghanistan and because I'd been on the hippie trail in 1970 and driven there in the right hand corner, just before you turned an old Bedford fan to Tehran. Why we'd gone there, I left for Russia, boing, there they were. don't really know, except that we had a band and in those days, that was what you did. And I remembered they were there, but I couldn't say exactly where they were. So I took my crew up and I But anyway, you got a taste of it, and I got a taste of a said, ‘Right, we'll turn right at Tabriz,’ and we arrived pretty special place. I think one of the things, of and found the golf balls. And drove up, there were two course, is that Iran conjures the most extraordinary 16 year old revolutionary guards sitting with kind of reactions. It is a place of unbelievable beauty. Kalashnikovs across their knees on tubular chairs. It's a place with the most incredible history, culture, depth. I mean, I'm afraid to say that they were working And they were a little worried to see us. But they on alphabets when we were crawling on our stomachs clearly had no familiarity with their weapons and did in the caves. That is unfortunately a fact. They were at nothing to familiarise themselves with them when we it 3,000 or 4,000 years BC and if not slightly more. arrived. They had no idea where they were or what they were doing. And we said they were somewhere At any rate, I was there for the revolution. And the rather important. And they said, ‘Well, that's fine. revolution was, make no mistake about it, a popular We're not remotely interested.’ They were quite happy revolution on a massive scale. It's still the biggest to let us film and the rest of it. movement of people I've ever seen in one place. Millions of people on the street. It was a passionate Of course, me being slightly exuberant and naive, I and it was an Islamic event. And there it is. That's said, ‘Let's go in!’ And of course the cameraman, what it was. We may not like it, but that's what it was. being rather wiser, said, ‘No, I think this might be It was an Iranian revolution, and you have to booby-trapped.’ And so we solemnly threw stones determine how you're going to deal with this. through the open door of one of the golf balls to see whether it was indeed booby-trapped.